By Paddy Upton For as long as I’ve worked in professional sport, I’ve heard the phrase “mental toughness” used as if it were a fixed, trainable trait. Coaches say players need to develop it. Commentators praise it. Leaders in business talk about building it. The only problem? It doesn’t actually exist. At least, not in […]
By Paddy Upton There’s a common belief in sport, business, and leadership that people need to be “pumped up” before they perform. That some kind of hype or confidence boost is necessary to get people into the zone. But the more time I’ve spent working with elite performers, the clearer it’s become: this belief just […]
Paddy Upton Over the years, I’ve worked with a number of athletes for whom faith is a core part of their identity. For many, that faith becomes a source of calm, courage, and perspective. But in high-stakes moments, even deeply religious athletes find themselves caught in something else: the pressure to perform, or the fear […]
By Paddy Upton This article is based on themes explored in two recent reels — a clip from my podcast Lessons from the World’s Best with Gary Kirsten, and a reflection on how ego quietly undermines team performance. First, what do I mean by ego? It’s that often unconscious part of us that is preoccupied […]
By Paddy Upton When it comes to performance, one word that’s thrown around more than most is confidence. You hear it in every changing room, every pre-match team talk, every boardroom before a big pitch.You need to be confident. Build your confidence. Go in with confidence. But where, exactly, does confidence come from? Some people get […]
By Paddy Upton Why does losing make you stronger than winning? It doesn’t. That’s a lovely idea. But it’s also, in most cases, rubbish. The notion that we learn more from failure than from success has been floating around sport and leadership circles for years. And I’m not convinced it holds up. In fact, I […]
If hard work is not enough, then what is? By now we know that hard work is not enough to achieve success. But it doesn’t mean, like many misinterpret, that you therefore don’t need to work hard. Rather, we need to know when to work hard, how to work smart and when to drop the […]
By Paddy Upton World number one fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah said something fascinating at a conference where he and I recently spoke in Bangalore. He said his unique action, which is one of his superpowers, is the result of him being “lucky enough to not have a coach when I was younger”. As a result, […]
By Paddy Upton If you want to win at anything worthwhile, you’ll need to learn how to lose. And not just in a “dust yourself off and try again” kind of way, but in a deeper, more accepting, and ultimately liberating way. Because here’s the reality—whether in sport, business, or life, if you play big […]
The Winning Mindset Interestingly, my experience is that a so-called ‘winning mindset’ is not so much about knowing how to win—all top athletes do—but rather about how well they manage and bounce back from loss. A practical example comes from my experience working with Gukesh D in preparation for the World Chess Championship final. After […]
By Paddy Upton Why do some people succeed more often than others? We know it’s seldom about sheer talent alone. In my time working with elite performers across sports and business, there are some common factors that keep coming up. These four stand out. Successful people prepare excellently. They don’t skim through the syllabus; they study […]
A few decades ago, the biggest challenge for most people was lack of access to information. Today, the challenge is almost the opposite—there’s too much information. Just like our shift from a world where food scarcity was a major issue to one where obesity is a dominant health concern, our mental diets have followed a […]
Confidence and arrogance often get mistaken for each other. From the outside, they can look remarkably similar—strong-willed, unwavering, even bold. But spend enough time around high performers, and the distinction becomes glaringly obvious. One fuels growth and elite performance; the other stifles it. Confidence is Earned, Arrogance is Assumed When Virat Kohli walks onto the […]
Over my years coaching elite athletes, I’d confidently say that the three most common mental obstacles to success are i) an inability to move on from past mistakes, ii) pressure to succeed and iii) fear of something going wrong at some point in the future. Fear of failure. Fear of injury. Fear of judgment. Fear […]
This ‘kid’ had just suffered a crushing loss in the 12th (of 14) games of the World Chess Championship. With scores now tied and two games to play, his attitude towards the loss—and the upcoming games, arguably the most significant in chess history—convinced me to take that flight. On the plane, I played a movie […]
